Sovereignty joins trend of Derby winners skipping Preakness

The exit of Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty on Tuesday before anyone had a chance to enter Preakness 2025 added fuel to the debate over the short gap between the first two Triple Crown races.

Sovereignty is the fourth of the last seven Derby winners who will have skipped the chance to wheel back two weeks later at Pimlico. There were Country House in 2019 and Rich Strike in 2022. In 2021, Mandaloun bypassed the race nine months before his Kentucky triumph was anointed with the formal disqualification of Medina Spirit, who did go to the Preakness and finished third.

Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty will skip Preakness.

As was the case with Country House, the tap-out from the Preakness came on the Tuesday after Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott and his team were celebrated as the biggest of winners at Churchill Downs. A virus began a string of physical problems for Country House, who never raced again after he was promoted to the Derby victory when stewards disqualified Maximum Security for interference.

This time, Mott and ownership at Godolphin told Preakness management they have their eyes on a five-week break for Sovereignty, whose only physical toll from the Derby appeared to be a mildly scraped pastern.

“Bill informed us they would point toward the Belmont Stakes,” 1/ST executive vice president Mike Rogers said in a terse statement Tuesday.

Sovereignty was Mott’s 14th Derby horse. The only one he sent to the Preakness was Taylor’s Special, his first in 1984. Owned by W.F. Lucas and a winner of the Louisiana Derby (G2) and the Blue Grass (G1), Taylor’s Special finished 13th at Churchill Downs two weeks before he came in fourth as the 7-2 second choice in the Preakness. His next race was not until the following winter.

Riley Tucker, owned by Zayat Stables, was Mott’s only other Preakness horse. After finishing third the month before in the 2008 Lexington (G2) at Keeneland, he came in last going off at 36-1 in Baltimore. After that he was transferred west to Bob Baffert and waited until February for his next race.

It is not like Mott has avoided Pimlico altogether. According to Equibase, he has had 87 starts there. Cigar, his greatest horse, won the 1995 Pimlico Special Handicap (G1) in the middle of a celebrated 16-race winning streak. His most recent of 17 wins there came with Mitchell Road in the 2019 Gallorette (G3). Frost Point was Mott’s last Pimlico starter, finishing third in the 2022 Allaire DuPont Distaff (G3)

“We want to give (Sovereignty) more time and take a shot at the Belmont,” Mott told Daily Racing Form on Tuesday. “I think the Triple Crown’s a great thing. It’s a huge challenge, and any horse that does it is great. I don’t believe anybody in our camp feels strongly about doing it.”

That camp means Godolphin, which got its first Kentucky Derby win in 14 tries. Sheikh Mohammed has not tried as hard to win the Preakness. His only entrant Worldly Manner finished 12th in 1999 after coming in seventh in the Derby. Trained by Saeed bin Suroor, he did not resurface until February 2000 in Dubai.

Trainer Eric Reed felt the same way as Mott when he decided not to send Rich Strike to Baltimore three years ago. They reflect a new truth for the Preakness, which has become expendable for horsemen who just made it through the Derby and the road leading to it. Between 1970 and 2005, Derby graduates made up 73% of the Preakness fields. Since 2006, they have dropped to 39%.

New shooters, the term used for non-Derby horses, have won the last five runnings of the Preakness and six of the last eight. In the 33 runnings between 1984 and 2016, only three Preakness winners had not run in the Derby.

For now only American Promise, who was 16th in the Kentucky Derby, has been committed to the Preakness. Runner-up Journalism is uncertain. His trainer Michael McCarthy told radio host Steve Byk he was thinking about sending San Vicente (G2) runner-up Bullard, who finished fifth April 12 in the Lexington (G3) at Keeneland.

Last year’s big day at Pimlico provided an a-ha moment for defenders of the old way of doing business. Even though Seize the Grey had not raced in the Kentucky Derby, he won the Pat Day Mile (G2) on the undercard. Derby winner Mystik Dan and fourth-place finisher Catching Freedom also hit the board in Baltimore, meaning the top three in the Preakness all had raced only two weeks earlier at Churchill Downs.

Rombauer in 2021, Early Voting in 2022 and National Treasure and 2023 have been more in tune with racing’s new world order. Each had six-week breaks before they won the Preakness.

Even so, the squelching of a Triple Crown before the running of the Preakness is still the stuff that raises eyebrows and old-school chagrin. Between 1960 and 2018, only Gato del Sol in 1982, Spend a Buck in 1985 and Grindstone in 1996 were denied the chance to parlay their Derby wins into Triple Crown possibilities. Now those exceptions are becoming the rule.